The Worth of a Morty
by HopeTheCrazyCat
Summary: "It's okay, isn't it? I mean, it's not like it really matters, right Rick? Isn't that what you always say "nothing matters"? So, this is nothing. It's just a small blip on the radar of the universe. I'm just one Morty and you always keep reminding me how disposable I am. My life holds no worth. And Mortys die every day anyways, right? It's just infinite minus one. Doesn't really...


AN: This story was actually inspired a long time ago by many, many fanfics where Morty gets terminally ill and Rick tries to cure him. However, I decided to make mine a platonic take of that kind of premise…and also give it a sad ending. So, you have been warned.

Also, many, many thanks to rickxoxomorty on Twitter for drawing this precious cover art! You're da best!

Warning: angst, character death, OOCness, probably some spoilers if you haven't read the comics

* * *

**The Worth of a Morty**

Many things were said about death. Some say it comes swift and unexpected. Others said it would slowly creep up on you.

Rick Sanchez was a man that wasn't thinking much about death. Or rather, he was thinking too much about it.  
The realization of his own mortality and the futileness of his existence on the universal scale. The knowledge that after his death, he would be soon forgotten and the universe will just keep expanding as if he hadn't existed to begin with.  
The thought that with death everything was just over and there was no paradise in heaven or fiery pits of hell. No afterlife and no rebirth. There was nothing.  
You just drop dead and that was it.

It was these realizations – that his own existence didn't matter – that made him choose to drown his own thoughts in alcohol every so often.  
It was also the reason why he choose to live his life to the fullest every day while still abiding to the natural struggle of staying alive for as long as possible like every other living being.

However, while the thought of his own death was something that he liked to avoid as much as possible (though in his old age, it was still constantly in the back of his mind), he didn't really feel bothered by witnessing the death of others.  
How could he, seeing, as he himself was often the demise of entire species, planets, even solar systems?

As equally unmoving did he feel about seeing his own corpse, which also wasn't as much of a rare sight as one might think. Seeing, as there were infinite dimensions, one Rick Sanchez was just bound to stumble across one or two dead versions of himself eventually.  
And how could that bother him really? In the grand scheme, it didn't really matter anyway and there were still plenty of him around.  
It was just infinite minus one or two, really.

So, he didn't feel anything when seeing himself die or dead. He also didn't feel anything when seeing other versions of his family finding their end.  
And the same went for Mortys. He had certainly seen as many dead grandsons as he had seen dead versions of himself.  
Sometimes, he was even the cause for their death. It meant nothing to him. After all, there were still plenty around.

However, the question was if he would be equally unbothered if it was about his own grandson – the Morty from his dimension.  
He was constantly busy saving the boy from trouble that he brought upon himself (though in truth, Rick was the one, who would get him into that sort of trouble to begin with). And while the occasions were rare, he went out his way to even sacrifice his own life for him.  
However, while he was usually successful in his rescue missions, eventually there had to be one time that even Rick Sanchez had to fail.  
It all started slowly, so slowly creeping up on them that it hit them unexpectedly…

"R-Rick… I don't feel so good…" Morty groaned softly as he stumbled to keep up with his grandfather's long strides.

Rick didn't stop or even look back. "Quit your whining, Morty."

He had important stuff to do and didn't care about whatever Morty was complaining about. If the boy really got sick, he would just make him a cure when they got home.  
At the moment, it was more important for him to get those rare crystals, which he would use as a new power source for his space car. He wasn't just going to stop because his grandson started to get a cold or something stupid like that.

However, for as tame as their hunt after those mysterious crystals went even before their adventure ended, Morty was more exhausted than ever.

"C-can we please… take a br-break… Rick?" the boy asked between panting breaths.

"No way, Morty." Rick said, as he looked the crystal in his hand over to make sure that they really found the right ones. "These crystals don't harvest themselves. So grab a bag and start plucking."

With shaking hands, he caught the big brown sack that his grandfather threw at him and started to collect the crystal that glowed in a turquoise color.  
Of course, it wouldn't be a real Rick and Morty AdventureTM, when things would have just continued to stay as peaceful as that.  
Their happy-crystal-harvest was quickly interrupted as Morty accidentally woke up the creature on which's back the crystals were growing and not soon after were they chased through the maze-like tunnels of the cave that they were in with a dinosaur-like alien on their heels.

While they fled, Morty was slower than he usually was in a situation in which he had to run for his life. The monster was steadily gaining up on him.  
Worse came to worst, when the boy stumbled and fell to the ground.

"Argh! Dammit, Morty!" Rick cursed as he, too, sharply stopped and dashed back to pick up Morty by the back of his shirt. "Will you stop acting like a virgin in a slasher movie for once, Morty? It gets really repetitive when you fall down every time that we're being chased."

There was no comeback from the boy as he continued to hang limply in Rick's grasp. Rick only grunted in annoyance that he had to lug his grandson around while they were still being chased.  
Eventually, he managed to escape from the beast and opened a portal, which brought them back home – inside the garage and Rick's personal workshop.

He let the boy finally drop unceremoniously on the ground as he started to ramble on about how Morty had once again managed to ruin everything as they returned empty-handed now.

"Goddammit, Morty! I already had those crystals and then you-you-you had to wake it up and now I've got nothing."

Rick kept on ranting for a while before he stopped. Something was weird here.  
Usually, Morty would protest back that it wasn't entirely his fault that their adventure had ended like this or he would complain about something or another, but he had oddly stayed silent through the entire time that his grandfather had been verbally ripping into him.

"Morty?" Rick actually turned around to the boy to see him still laying on the floor where he had dropped him. "Morty!"

He rushed over to the boy only find out that he had been so silent the entire time because he was passed out.  
It made Rick panic a little bit before he remembered that Morty had complained about not feeling too well before. He had been also trembling, panting and sweating a lot even though they hadn't really walked all that much.

Maybe he had caught some sort of alien flu or something? So, Rick decided to cure his grandson – also for the sake that he wouldn't be a whiney bitch about this after he woke up again.  
He picked Morty up and brought him down to his underground laboratory where he placed him on an examination table.

Rick took a blood sample and started to run several tests.  
However, the more he tested and looked over the results, the more confused he became.  
In the middle of the examination, Morty had come to again and looked quizzically up at his grandfather as he looked once more over the results.

"Have you found out what is wrong with me, Rick?" he asked weakly.

"That is the thing, Morty. There is nothing wrong with you."

"What? But I feel so weak." Morty couldn't believe that it was true.

Rick sighed. "You're probably just exhausted, Morty. You should go to bed and sleep."

The scientist decided to give up and could only assume that the boy was just tired.  
Maybe he should avoid pulling him out of bed around 3 AM for a while, he figured.  
Morty still found it hard to believe, but followed Rick's advice and went to bed early.

True to his word, Rick had avoided waking Morty up in the middle of the night to take him on an adventure. He didn't even bother the boy at school and generally laid off for a while.  
However, it seemed that over time instead of getting better, Morty's condition just got worse. The only things that he complained about was just being tired all the time and feeling nauseous though.  
When the boy eventually became too weak to even walk on his own anymore, Rick examined him once again… and once more, he was not able to find anything wrong with him.  
Being at the end of his medicinal knowledge, he decided that he needed professional help.

"Oh c'mon! Just get your ass over here!" Rick practically yelled into his mobile phone while Morty watched him queasily from the examination table. "Haven't you sworn an oath to help all Mortys or something like that?"

Whoever Rick was talking to, replied. Unfortunately, Morty wasn't able to hear what was said.

"As I told you before, I can't bring him over to you. I'm pretty much sure that I'm not welcome on the Citadel anymore after destroying it and killing everyone in charge." He was silent for another moment as his conversational partner replied.

Then, "Yeah, see you."

With those last words, he hung up.  
Morty wanted to ask whom Rick had called, but before he could even get the first word out, a portal suddenly opened.

"You better remember that home visits aren't cheap, C-137." The Rick who entered through the portal said as a greeting.

He wore a blue-green top with inflated see-through plastic sleeves and a white smock. Teal-colored latex gloves were also adorning his hands. The white headpiece on his head kind of looked out of place on him though.  
It was something that Morty would have expected a nurse to wear, but not some kind of Rick doctor.  
The doctor, who was known as Surgeon Rick, also had a large briefcase with him.

"Yeah, yeah, I know. Will you just go and take a look at him already." Rick waved towards his Morty, not really caring about money at the moment.

Surgeon Rick went over to the examination table. "Why, hello there, Morty. Where does it hurt?"

"I'm not really hurting. I just feel really weak." Morty said, feeling a bit uncomfortable as he always did around doctors even if this one was a Rick…or maybe **especially** because this one was a Rick.

Surgeon Rick hummed as he opened his briefcase and removed all sorts of tools that he had brought with him.  
The sight of some of them made Morty sweat and swallow heavily.  
Hopefully, the doctor wasn't planning on using all of those on him.

Just like Rick C-137, Surgeon Rick began to run several tests on the boy.  
Looking with a frown at his results, he began to question the boy.

"Morty, did you eat something before you started to feel like this? A plant or fruit or did you put anything else in your mouth?"

The boy shook his head.

Surgeon Rick hummed. "Did you get bitten by an animal or another creature or stung by something?"

"No. Nothing like that. I just started to feel really tired from one moment to the other."

Surgeon Rick hummed once more before he turned towards Rick C-137. "Where did you say again did he catch this?"

"We were on planet Cyrumlon in dimension B-622C. Could you find out what he has?"

"Gonna set that one on the red list so other Ricks won't bring their Mortys there." Surgeon Rick said as he made an according note on his tablet pc. "It seems your Morty's muscles are deteriorating by the way."

"Yeah, I already figured out as much! I want to know what's causing it or preferably how to cure it!" Rick was pissed.

He hadn't gone out of his way to bring this asshole of a professional medic here just to hear from him what he already knew.

"See, that's the thing, C-137." Surgeon Rick started and moved a bit farther away from the Morty as if he didn't want him to hear the conversation even though the boy could still hear them. "Your Morty is a hopeless case. There's no way to cure him."

"You can't be serious!" C-137 protested.

"Just telling you as it is. There's nothing that I can do for him. You know as good as I do that at this rate, he's only got a few more hours or may one to two days at best. Just give up and get yourself a new one at the Citadel's Reassignment Center. Better get going soon 'cause, you know that they have long lines and it takes a while to get a new one." Surgeon Rick started to pack his stuff together. "Oh, if you like, I can put him out of his misery right now."

"What?! No! Get the hell out of here!"

Morty felt queasy as he followed the conversation especially when the doctor offered to put him out as if he was just some pet.  
This was it though, wasn't it? If a Rick Doctor of all people said that there was no chance of recovery for him then he was really done for.  
He wasn't sure how to feel about it. Though, he had never liked to imagine it, he had been thinking how it probably must be for people when they were diagnosed with cancer and were told that they only had a few more months to live.  
He'd always imagined that if it was him, he'd probably freak out, get really angry and start throwing things around or just break down and cry, but now he just felt numb.

"Here's your stupid money and now get out you quack." C-137 practically shoved the money into Surgeon Rick's arms and pushed him through the portal.

He didn't like to hear the news, but in the end it only confirmed his fears.  
Even the medic couldn't find the cause for the disintegration of Morty's muscles and therefore a cure for it.  
Rick knew there wasn't much that he could do anymore now.

Sure, he could try to stimulate the boy's muscles with electricity and use some other stimulants on him, but in the long run the only good it would do was buy them some more time.  
Eventually, the muscles in Morty's body would completely stop working, which in turn would mean that his heart would stop pumping blood through his veins. It would just stop beating and the boy would die and even if he tried to give him a pacemaker, his other organs would also eventually fail to function.  
Completely bypassing the fact that Morty would be bedridden and not be able to take care of himself anymore…

"Hey, Rick?" Morty interrupted his dark thoughts. "Since you lost the free voucher when I had been kidnapped by those drug lords, you'll probably have to wait a bit before you get another Morty…so you should probably do what the doctor had said and go to that reassignment center right now."

Morty actually hoped that Rick wasn't too angry about that time. They just happened to forget the voucher there after all that chaos.  
The boy could still remember how Rick had handed him the piece of paper before he had been abducted.

_"Here." Rick said, as he handed him the slip that Morty quickly identified as the voucher for a free Morty that Rick had received after he had been falsely accused of Rickicide by the Council of Ricks. "While I'm on the toilet and produce something worthless, you can think about your own worth, Morty."_

"Wha-wha-what are you saying, Morty? You're not gonna die. I'll fix you back up again, all right buddy?" Rick tried to smile reassuringly at his grandson. "Grandpa's got this, Morty. I'll fix it. Ju-just like always, Morty."

They both knew that it was a lie.

"It's okay, Rick."

No, it wasn't okay. It was anything but okay.  
But what could Rick do about it? There was nothing that he could do. He was the most intelligent man in the entire universe and yet there was nothing that he could do to save his grandson.

"Morty…" Rick started, his tone sounding apologetic.

Rick Sanchez never apologized.

Morty interrupted him though. "Hey, Rick? Can you do me a favor?"

"Sure, Morty. What is it?" At this point Rick would do anything for him. Well, maybe with a few limitations, but as long as it wasn't too whack, Rick would grant him his wish.

"I would like to see Vensenulon 7 one more time."

"Sure, Morty. Is that all you want?"

That request sounded too simple. Rick would have expected that Morty might had wanted to do more than just that before he…  
Maybe eat so much of the best ice cream in the multiverse till he exploded. Or hang out in Blips and Chitz.  
Heck, he would have even understood it if the boy wouldn't have wanted to die as a virgin and asked him to bring him to a dimension where Jessica had the hots for him and would let him do the do with her. Because that dimension totally existed out there.

"Yeah, I just wanna see it one more time." Morty nodded.

Rick grabbed his portal gun and inserted the coordinates.

Meanwhile, Morty tried to get up from the examination table by himself, but his weak arms failed to heave his upper body up. Trying the next best thing, he rolled over on his side and let his legs dangle over the edge before he placed his feet on the ground. As soon as he tried to put his weight on his legs though, he collapsed and fell on the ground.

Rick quickly went over to him and picked him up, carrying Morty in his arms.  
It was sad to see that the boy was already too weak to walk on his own.  
As they went through the portal, the beautiful sight of a lush meadow, a violet sky and a giant mountain from which spewed sparkling water in the distance opened up in front of them.

For some odd reason Morty could only remember this place fuzzily, but he didn't know why. It was almost as if he had forgotten something important about it, but he couldn't place his finger on what it was.  
Yet it still looked as paradisiac as he could recall from his murky memory.

"Um, Rick? Could you bring me over there please?" Morty shakily pointed to a spot that was a bit closer to the river.

Rick didn't complain and carried him over to where he wanted. "Here?"

"Yeah, this is a good spot. Please let me down here."

Rick let Morty down, who then sat in the grass and looked over the water. His posture was a little slouched as he struggled to maintain his seated position, putting more effort and energy in it than he ever remembered doing before.  
Even though it was still afternoon, it really was a good spot from which the sunset could be viewed perfectly.  
For a moment, neither said a word.

"Well, you should probably go and pick up your new Morty now." Morty finally spoke up. "You can just leave me here."

"But, Morty…"

"It's okay, isn't it?" Morty smiled sadly. "I mean, it's not like it really matters, right Rick? Isn't that what you always say "nothing matters"? So, this is nothing. It's just a small blip on the radar of the universe. I'm just one Morty and you always keep reminding me how disposable I am. My life holds no worth. And Mortys die every day anyways, right? It's just infinite minus one. Doesn't really matter on the grand scale. Nothing does. I'm just another Morty, who didn't make it now…"

Morty remembered the many dead Mortys he had already seen in his life.  
Whether it was his own corpse that he had to bury in the backyard, the countless bodies as his Rick had warped the entire Citadel of Ricks into the high security prison of the Galactic Federation or the Morty that he had shot as he was on his fascism hunt.  
He was just one of those Mortys now. As equally as important as all of his dead alternate selves who didn't amount to anything.  
Maybe, it was finally now that he understood Rick better than ever before, he thought.

"M-Morty. I just can't leave you here." Rick protested.

He wasn't just going to leave his grandson all alone in his last moments.

Morty blinked back up at him. "Oh, if you have the need to bury my corpse or something, you can still come back later to do that. You don't really have to wait here."

In Morty's opinion that made sense. Wouldn't it be even more efficient for Rick if he would just bring his new Morty and let him do the digging?  
He knew if he were the "new Morty", Rick would have made him do it.

Rick suddenly knelt down behind him and wrapped his arms around him, hiding his face in Morty's neck and making it impossible for Morty to look at him now.  
The action surprised the boy. Rick had never done anything like this before.  
The scientist wasn't really one for cuddling and hugs were maybe not completely absent, but they were still pretty rare.

"Don't you want to say goodbye to your family or something?" Rick mumbled against his neck.

"Wouldn't it be weird if I did that when you're going to show up with a new Morty later on?" Morty argued back. "Besides they weren't my real family anyways. My family is in dimension C-137 and I don't think that they would care much if I showed up now. I've been probably dead to them since we left that dimension behind…" He remembered how they had acted the last time that he had seen his original family when he had brought his "current" Summer there.

A sob rang suddenly through the air.

"R-Rick? Are you crying?" Morty asked as he heard unmistakable sniffling. "Why are you crying? Did you get hurt or something, Rick? If you're hurt you should take care of it. Or-or-or go and see a doctor in case it's something serious…"

"Will you just shut up, Morty!" Rick ground out angrily and pulled the boy even closer into his arms.

Morty was confused by this behavior.  
Surely Rick wasn't crying because of him, right? No, he couldn't be crying over Morty because in a few hours, he would have already picked up a new Morty anyways. And then Rick would just continue to live his life like he had done before.  
He would probably not even think about him anymore or even remember him. And why should he if he had a new Morty at his side?

The sobs had subsided after a while and both just sat there and watched the sun slowly set behind the mountain.  
Since it became too exhausting for Morty to even sit up, the boy just laid down on the soft grass while Rick continued to sit close beside him.  
They watched how one of Vensenulion 7's many moons rose and admired the night sky still in silence.

Morty started to shiver. "It's gotten cold." His voice was barely audible, it was so weak.

"Yeah, you're right." Rick said.

It wasn't true though. It wasn't cold at all. The nice warmth from the day still hung in the air and radiated from the soil and the close by water.  
Still, Rick took off his lab coat and wrapped it around Morty.

"Thank you." The boy mumbled and Rick merely shrugged it off.

It was rare to see Rick being so nice to him, but Morty didn't mind it. It made him smile.  
Silence settled between them once again as they both continued to look up at the stars.

They both thought about all the adventures they had shared together… and all the ones that they wouldn't be able to have together.  
Rick had always thought if one of them would have to die first, it would be him. Obviously, with his age and all. That was the natural order of things and no grandparent should have to live through the death of their grandchild ever.  
His zero risk-awareness would have probably also furthered the odds of him being the first to go, too. So why wasn't he? Why did he get to live while Morty had to die?

The universe could be so fucking unfair, cruel and unforgiving sometimes…

Morty thought somewhat similarly about the order of their deaths though he always thought that they both would die on the same day. He had always been expecting that Rick would die first and then leave him behind in some crappy, alien-related, dangerous situation in which he would die without Rick's genius and technology then.  
To see it come to this felt almost ironic.

"I…feel so…tired…" Morty's voice was so faint that it was merely a whisper anymore.

"…then sleep, Morty. And tomorrow we'll watch the sunrise together." Rick also whispered.

Morty hummed in response though if it wasn't for the small vibration his body created with it, it would have gone completely unnoticed. The boy slowly closed his eyes.  
Rick bit his lower lip. Of course, he knew that it was a lie. Morty wouldn't see the sun rise again.

Not much later Morty's breath became fainter before it was gone completely.  
Rick checked his pulse, but there was nothing.  
Morty was gone for good. He wasn't going to wake up again.

Rick hugged the body of his grandson close to himself and sobbed again. He had failed Morty.  
He knew what he needed to do. He needed to let go and go to the Citadel to pick up a new Morty. There were so many rickless Mortys there that waited for a new Rick to pick them up.  
But Rick couldn't do it.

He couldn't let go of Morty and just continue to live on as if this had never happened. Not again.  
This boy hadn't just been _a_ Morty. He had been his grandson – _his_ grandson from his original dimension. And no one – no other Morty – could replace him.  
Ever!

"What had happened to Rick and Morty a hundred years?" Rick mumbled against Morty's still body.

No, he wouldn't let go. Never!  
He would never fail his Morty again!

* * *

A Rick and his Morty where walking around on Vensenulon 7, searching for one thing or another.

"Wah!" unsuspectingly, the Morty stumbled suddenly.

As he looked down to see what he had stumbled over, he shrieked loudly.

"What the heck are you screaming like that for?" his Rick asked.

"Th-th-there's—it's our corpses!"

Rick walked over to take a look for himself.

"Yeah, that's a dead Rick and his Morty from another dimension." He commented nonchalantly.

The Morty was still frazzled. "But why? What did they die from?"

He looked around in a panic as if expecting to find what had caused their deaths to be still lingering around and attacking them any moment.  
Which was kind of stupid because if they had been killed by some kind of animal, it probably would have eaten them and not just let the corpses lay around untouched like that.

"Hmm." The Rick kneeled down a little to look a bit closer at his dead self as he analyzed the possible cause of his death.

"This Rick must have died from dehydration." The signs were obvious enough.

"What? How can that be? There is a giant river right over there?" The Morty gestured over to the body of water as he said that, not feeling one bit better at the revelation.

"His Morty seemed to have died a while before him." The Rick ignored his grandson as he stared at the dead alternate of the boy that was held in his own dead counterpart's arms.

The boy's corpse had already started to decompose.

"It's hard to tell what he died from though. There's no wounds on the outside that would suggest an attack. And if it had been poison there should have been some discolorations on his skin." The Rick stood up again. "Can't really tell without autopsying the body."

"I still don't understand what has happened here." The Morty was as confused as he was in the beginning.

"Well, I'd say after his Morty died this Rick just gave up and waited here for his own death." He already turned away from the bodies and resumed his walk. "Which is really stupid. He could have just gotten himself a new Morty on the Citadel. There's plenty around."

The Morty still stood over the corpses and looked at the strange picture.  
A Rick holding his Morty close to him even in death. Despite the grotesqueness, the sight looked oddly sweet, showing a sort of affection that he had never felt between himself and his grandfather.

"Morty! Hurry up if you don't want me to just leave you here and get a new Morty." The Rick reprimanded him.

The boy hurried to catch up with his grandfather, knowing that he probably would make that threat true if he got lost here.  
After all, he knew how much he was worth to his Rick. His grandfather had made it clear for him often enough…


End file.
